Straight Up: Paula Inks Deal With Oprah for TV Return

Paula Abdul is poised to follow in daytime talk queen Oprah Winfrey’s Jimmy Choos after signing a deal for her own show with the media mogul’s network.  Abdul left her job as a judge on TV’s “American Idol” in 2009 after contract talks broke down.  Sapphic ray of sunshine, Ellen DeGeneres, has since replaced her.  Abdul is planning to bring her career back to the small screen by taping her pilots for OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) one hour at a time, with two-hour breaks at 20-minute intervals. Much like her new mentor, Abdul will offer the viewers a program smack with originality, featuring celebrities and regular folk talking about piffle and inspirational challenges respectively.  It is unclear if Paula will also follow Oprah’s format of featuring “favorite things.” Obvious jokes about necklaces made of Vicodin aside, we can only hope that unlike Oprah, she won’t feature items like lavendar/shea butter/moondust quadruple milled soap, “Wish” boxes designed to mimic a miniature Ark of the Covenant, nighttime intensive moisturizing eye cream featuring Brazilian tree-frog tears, a villa in Tuscany or faux ostrich skin Kindle covers. It is also possible that Paula will join former co-worker and judge Simon Cowell on Britain’s “X-Factor” talent show as a judge.  She reportedly mumbled, “Anything Ellen DeGeneres can do, I can do too!”  We’re going to keep an eye on Portia de Rossi’s Facebook status in that case.